This was such an enjoyable show. I want to thank Steve and Wes for joining me as guests. We discuss what it means to be open-hearted and balanced, and how to live so that we can experience a peaceful, loving existence with ourselves and others.
We also talk about vulnerability, forgiveness, working with conflict, mindful communication, transparency, staying in our center, accessing and sharing feelings, peaceful assertion, being the observer, empathy, putting up healthy boundaries with others, the divine male and divine female, intuition and more.
Thank you to Ellen for the transcript and Sherill for editing.
Click here to listen to the full show: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/inlight_radio/2014/03/04/the-brilliance-within–the-open-hearted-balanced-male
GD: Hello and welcome to The Brilliance Within, where we discuss and explore the unfoldment and realization of our greatest potential as humans. Today we’ll be having a multi-generational roundtable discussion on the open-hearted, balanced male.
Joining me is Steve Beckow, founder of the Golden Age of Gaia and author of Building Nova Earth: Toward a World that Works for Everyone. Also with me is Wes Annac, creator of the Aquarius Paradigm daily news site, and Wes is also a contributing editor of the Golden Age of Gaia as well. Welcome to you both!
Steve Beckow: Thank you very much, Graham.
Wes Annac: Thank you Graham
GD: We’re moving from a paradigm of competitiveness to one of cooperation, from the illusion of separateness to unity consciousness, where love and peace is the theme. So the stereotypical attributes of the Western male–the image of the stoic, tough, independent male, where we stuff our feelings and we try to embody an us-versus-them, dog-eat-dog, never-let-them-see-you-sweat world–no longer works. Today we’re going to discuss what does it look like being male in this new paradigm.
Now, Steve and Wes, I know your work pretty well. And between the three of us we’ve been pretty open about our process and journey to become more open-hearted and balanced in our lives, and I appreciate you coming to share about that today. What’s really cool is that the three of us, we’re representing three different generations. Wes, you’re 20 years old, I’m 44, and Steve, you’re 67. So, I see us offering a unique opportunity here to share.
And this is in the spirit of … not us having it all figured out, and fully embodying the open-hearted, balanced male, but it’s the journey to get there. And so, Steve, maybe we can start with you. You’ve lived and embodied this Western, stereotypical male image that I spoke of, and you’ve also been on quite a journey to make changes over time to embody a different way of being male. How would you say you’re different today than, say, 20 years ago?
SB: Well, Graham, I don’t think I can lay claim to being balanced. Not yet. Not by a long shot. That goal lies out ahead of me.
But I try to be vulnerable, transparent, but also responsible. And you talked earlier about the no-nonsense kind of male. That won’t wash anymore. I try to respect the free-will choices of my partner. I probably should have put this first: the most important thing for me is that I listen, listen, listen–attentively, recreating the experience of my partner. So those are the three biggest changes in my personality, since being a no-nonsense male many years ago.
GD: You were a former refugee adjudicator. You used to be very involved with karate, and you shared with me that at one time you were really ready for “the fight,” whether it was advocating and representing victims that you would be working with, or at least hearing the cases, or being on a street corner and wanting to serve as protector. Do you see a shift there in terms of how you’ve been able to harness that energy over time?
SB: Well, just looking at karate for a minute, you might think that karate teaches you to be a real street fighter or something, but it actually doesn’t. Every karate exercise begins with a defensive move. There is no karate exercise that begins with an offensive move. So in actual fact it taught me to hold back, and that was very useful.
And being an adjudicator fully empowered me to experience authority, to experience having power, etc., etc., but the actual content of that was to decide the fate of refugees, people who had experienced torture and persecution in their own home countries. So, at the same time that I fully experienced — and experienced through the having of authority and power — I also was made very, very clear about the ramifications of my making a wrong decision or a heartless decision. So, again, both of these were wonderful arenas to work out in to discover the attributes which we’re now seeing attached to the new male.
GD: Well, let’s talk about one of those attributes: vulnerability. And for those of you that don’t know her, Brené Brown has done extensive research in the field of human connection, and she has a really great TED Talk on the subject of vulnerability. And one of the things that she uncovered, which I really like is that she talks about courage, and courage comes from the Latin root word cor, which means heart. And I really like that. It presents a new way of looking at vulnerability.
Vulnerability, if we were to loosely define that, is the willingness to be accessible, to be open, to share one’s feelings readily. And of course that goes against what many of us have been taught in Western culture–many of us men–where you stuff your feelings; you don’t share feelings; you don’t talk; communication is somewhat limited. Wes, maybe I can go to you and just ask you about what’s coming up for you when you think of vulnerability and to what extent you’ve felt successful in incorporating that in your life, embodying that.
WA: Well, for me, vulnerability is actually kind of a catalyst that leads me to be able to express myself in a much greater way. I could perhaps use this radio show as an example. You might not know it, but I actually feel a tinge of nervousness before every radio show, every interview and everything like that that I do, I try to go out of my way to communicate that during the show, so people can see that I’m coming from as sincere and genuine and vulnerable a level as possible.
And I try to do the same thing with my writings. Sometimes I’ll talk about something that I’m going through in my life, or an issue that’s really close to my heart, or something of that nature–and I do that because I want to be able to share and be as open with people as possible, and be able to diminish the barrier that tends to be there between the writer and the reader.
I want to be able to connect with people on as personal a level as I possibly can. And that’s why I at least try to make it a point to answer every comment that I receive on my blog, every message I receive in my email or on Facebook. I try to really be able to connect with people on a personal level.
GD: I think you hit on something really important, and that’s: it’s all about the connection, right? So if we are willing to be vulnerable with someone else, someone else can see our humanness. And they can say, “Geez, you know, you’ve got feelings just like I do. I kind of feel the same way.” Or, “Boy, I really get that you’re not trying to compete with me–or maybe you are, but you’re at least speaking to it.”
So that level of sharing, that level of being more transparent, it sets the stage for a greater connection. And that’s really what you spoke of. Wes, have you always been in that place, where you’ve been able to readily–or at least somewhat comfortably–share? Or willing. I guess it’s not about comfort so much perhaps, as I hear what you were saying about feeling a little nervous at times. But have you always been willing to share your vulnerable self?
WA: That’s actually something I’m kind of growing into and trying to cultivate–I continue to–about my work. There have been times in the past, and maybe even recently, when I have received an email or a comment and I haven’t answered it for whatever reason. Maybe I was just too tired, or maybe I just let it slip my mind.
But I try to let myself generally be as open with everybody as I can, so I can cultivate that sense of — as you were saying before — that sense of, okay, there really are very few differences between me and this person.
It doesn’t matter if this person is recognized by two people or a million people. They’re still somebody that I can go to and talk to. And they’re never too busy for me. They can always find a moment for me, so I can share with them what I’m feeling, and then subsequently they can share what they’re feeling as well.
GD: What’s coming up for me is this reminder that we’re all connected, and we’re all from the same source. And we’re social beings, and it provides great comfort when we can connect with another person, and we can soften. We can let go of ego and let go of any fear, and really connect with a person on a deep level. Steve, what’s coming up for you when you think about vulnerability?
SB: Well, it’s a dance, Graham, for me. If you just think of being vulnerable, being transparent, without thinking of being responsible at the same time, then we get into difficulties. Everything has a limit to the left, a limit to the right, so to speak. You can go off to either periphery and it doesn’t become productive anymore. And for me, if I want to be vulnerable productively, I have to be responsible in my vulnerability; I don’t use vulnerability to hit somebody over the head.
Have we time for me just to read what Archangel Michael said about vulnerability?
GD: Sure.
SB: This is from a personal reading in which an event happened in my life that was quite shocking and quite confronting. And I asked him: “Was that done on purpose?” And he said, “Well, yes. It was designed to give you a kind of a look into what could happen if you’re going to be a public figure.”
He went on to say, “Your vulnerability is precious, and it is part of the spiritually-mature individual to be available and to be vulnerable. I do not wish you to allow this vulnerability to hurt you — mentally, emotionally or physically — but accept that you are vulnerable and simply know that unfortunate events can occur, and that you will take — just as you are now — measured action to address the situation.”
Again, measured action, responsibility. In my view, the spiritually-mature person knows both how to be transparent and how to not have that become a circumstance that inconveniences the other person.
GD: I think what you’re getting into is this balanced part of the equation, right? We discuss the open-hearted, balanced male, and so what is coming up for me is this notion of being in one’s center and being mindful in our interactions, in how we walk in the world, how we communicate.
And of course that connects to responsibility, a level of consciousness. And so that’s certainly an important part of it. And that really gets back to presence, right? I mean, being in the present moment, being mindful, being really in tune with our communications. We don’t want to dump on another person, right?
So when, in relationship, when, walking through life and something comes up and if there’s a challenge, if someone’s feeling a little off kilter, to say, “Hey, you know, geez, I just feel out of sorts right now,” or, “What I just experienced didn’t feel so hot.” Just naming the feeling, and sharing the feeling, and communicating it, first and foremost, that’s a step to opening the heart, right? And facilitating that connection with another?
SB: First of all, Graham, I don’t consider myself balanced. That’s something that’s out ahead of me.
But, yes. Just before we move on from that notion, Graham, perhaps I could just say for the listeners, or suggest for the listeners, why balance is so important. The soul or heart lives in the middle of the body. If we stay in balance, if we stay in the center, we maximize our focus on the heart, we maximize our contact with the soul, and that’s where the truest speaking comes from.
If, on the other hand, we get imbalanced, go out to the peripheries of emotion, then we minimize the ability to express the heart, to express the soul. I just wanted to say that, initially. I don’t know if Wes wanted to say anything about balance. It’s such an important concept.
WA: Well, I really like what you said there, Steve. Balance is important, not only to the work that we do but to the manner in which we communicate with those around us and the manner in which we express ourselves. If we have an issue, for example, with somebody we’ve been working with on a spiritual problem like that, we need to be able to be vulnerable and express how we feel to them, especially if we have some kind of problem or something like that.
We need to be able to be vulnerable, but as you said we need to be able to do it in a balanced way, not in a way that presents our vulnerability or the issue itself as something that should stress the other person out or bring the other person out of balance themselves. So I think we need to be able to communicate from the heart, in a balanced way, and in a way that keeps in mind — how can I best say this? — a way that keeps in mind how others might respond or react to what we’re saying.
GD: I really like that, Wes. Why are we even talking about this? I mean, why is it important to think about vulnerability and balance and open-heartedness? I think it’s important to touch upon that. And what comes up for me is, you know, when I’m open-hearted, it helps me work through conflict with people more, because there’s a connection there, right?
If we can just kind of dispel or quell some of the charge and get to a place of just softening a bit and relaxing and connecting, then we have the opportunity to work through conflict. It gives us the experience of a greater love and connection with others, and it helps foster nurturing relationships generally. And so I think it’s important to touch upon that.
And I know for me, over time, as I’ve thought about being exposed to — and this isn’t about beating up on our elders — but I was exposed to, right from the get-go, a male stereotype where you don’t talk about your feelings — you stuff them; you explode when you’re angry; and affection generally isn’t shared. And I’ve come to a place — and it’s taken a lot of work, but I’ve come to a place of recognizing: geez, when I stay in my heart, when I connect to my heart, I’m a heck of a lot happier.
I find that I’m less interested in drama and conflict, that my relationships are much more peaceful, that I feel peace in my heart about me and how I walk in the world; I feel much more accessible to people, and far happier, generally. And so the argument for really giving this serious consideration and thought, like, why shift to this place: it feels really good, and the quality of life is so much more heightened and enjoyable.
SB: Could I speak to that, Graham?
GD: Yes, please.
SB: If you wouldn’t mind. Forgive me. I need to go back to first principles to be able to address that question, because you’ve described how good it feels, how happy you are. And sometimes we don’t ask ourselves why that could be, why that would be. I need to say that life has a purpose. The purpose of life is to know who we are. That is actually the purpose of life, as any enlightened person has said through the ages.
We discover, through this process, that we are a fragment of God, that we are God itself, and anything that contributes towards that discovery of who we are, and anything that leads us to experience ourselves as the Divine, results in love, results in happiness. So, everything we’re talking about, whether it’s the concept of balance, or whether it’s the concept of sharing ourselves, or whether it’s the concept of oneness, all of these are markers on the road to discovering our true identity, right? And if we were in our true identity, we would be experiencing bliss and love and joy.
So, that’s the context to why it is that vulnerability feels better than remaining hidden, or responsibility feels better than blaming another person. So I’d like to put that in as the context, as the background to why vulnerability brings happiness to us, and why love feels good. It’s because it assists us to know who we are, and knowing who we are is why we’re here, and knowing who we are leads to all the treasures of life, like love and bliss.
GD: Great that you spoke to that, Steve. Thanks very much. Wes, what’s coming up for you around that?
WA: Well, I very much agree with what Steve said just now. The reason that we need to . . . or the reason that we should, I think, embrace vulnerability and being centered and balanced in our interactions with other people is because it does lead us to that level of bliss and that level of love that we have the opportunity to feel.
I’ve noticed that with pretty much all of the divine qualities, they’re something that you have to work to achieve, strive to attain, but at a certain point they become a natural result of the higher vibration that you’re on. And I wanted to speak to something you said earlier, Graham. I believe you posed the question of why should we even be discussing this and talking about this right now. It’s because there are a lot of people out there who aren’t on the level that some of the more, I guess you could say, progressive seekers are, who are starting to understand the importance of balance and simplicity and vulnerability and things of that nature.
There are people who are just beginning to rediscover spirit, but the divine qualities are still in the outer recesses of their mind. Certain ways that you can live your life that will enhance your quality of life aren’t yet understood by a lot of people, and I would imagine especially by a lot of males who have also been, for better or worse, forced to fit into a certain paradigm of non-expression of one’s emotions and things of that nature.
So I think it’s important for us to talk about being in balance, because we’re getting the idea out there even more, and we’re spreading knowledge about it. And from our actions in doing that other people will be able to start traversing the path of balance and of vulnerability.
GD: And we have a huge impact as individuals, right? I mean, I’m thinking about Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” And if it is the vision to bring about a world of peace and bring about a world of harmony where there’s more love, then it really starts with ourselves.
I wanted to share a little bit about a process that I’ve experienced in terms of accessing feelings and getting to a place of communicating them. And it’s been a journey, for sure, and I think about over the last 20 years I realized, perhaps 20 years ago, that I had gotten so used to stuffing feelings, because it was the model that I was exposed to from the get-go, that it would take me quite a while, sometimes years, before I could make the connection for how I was feeling and connect that to a feeling or an incident.
Let me be a little clearer. So something would happen. It wouldn’t feel good. I’d stuff it. And it might take me months or years to realize, boy, I’ve been holding on to that feeling for quite some time now; I never expressed it. And so the time-line has shrunk considerably, where I’ve really kind of chiseled it down in sometimes a conscious but mostly an unconscious process, I think it’s really about intention — where something would happen, and the first step for me was to even acknowledge that something within myself just didn’t feel right.
And to speak it, at least to me, to say, “Geez, something feels a little off here,” and then to even communicate that to another person… If I’m in a love relationship, for example, to be okay with saying, “Boy, something just feels a little off kilter here,” and not to have it all figured out, because oftentimes, especially men, they want to have the solution, they want to have it all analyzed and understand root causes and all of that, but to give myself permission to say, “Geez, something just doesn’t feel good here. Something doesn’t feel right.”
And then, of course, that in itself is a very vulnerable process, right? Because then I’m saying, “Boy, I’m not strong; I’m not stoic; I don’t have it all figured out.” I’m willing to just say, “Hey, something just is not feeling so hot.” And then to be able to dig a little deeper, to get to the feelings around it, “Boy, when this happened, this is what I felt,” and then even further to share it with a person. And before you know it you’ve discussed it and you’ve been able to . . . you’re able to move on from that event, as opposed to carrying it for years and years and years, and holding a grudge.
And of course there’s enough information out there which clearly makes the connection between feelings and when we stuff feelings. When we stuff anger, it has a direct effect on the quality of our lives and also it has a direct effect physically. And so in my stepping into this process, where I’m able to access feelings readily, communicate them readily, not always right away but much quicker than I used to, I feel a heck of a lot better, and physically I feel better than I did 20 years ago, that’s for sure.
WA: Yeah. I think what you’re saying, or what you’re getting at, is that we have to be able to be vulnerable with ourselves if we really want to be vulnerable with people around us. If we’re not in a space where we’re willing enough to search deep down and understand what the root of the problem is without driving ourselves crazy over it, like you said, to really ask ourselves what the issue might be that’s bothering us or holding us back, keeping us down, then we’re not going to be able to be open with the people around us about it. It’s something that, like everything else, has to come from within, and then it’s expressed in our outward reality.
GD: As within, so without, right?
WA: Yes. Yes, exactly.
GD: Thank you very much for that, Wes. Well, Steve, this is a perfect segue to getting into something that you’ve been working with for years about how we express. And you’ve written on creative expression and vasanas and core issues. And so, how do we source old wounds, old issues, challenges, and communicate and express them in a safe, respectful, considerate manner? And you were talking about responsibility earlier. Do you want to speak about core issues, vasanas, and the importance of that in this discussion?
SB: Sure. What you were talking about earlier, Graham, was describing the completing of a vasana. A vasana is an automatic reaction pattern that we create as a result of traumatic incidents in the past. And you just described that.
Out of the vasana, out of the traumatic incident, we reach a conclusion about something. The conclusion could be, that was not smart, to say that. Then we reach a decision. The decision could be, “Oh, boy. I’m not going to say that again.”
And we take a picture of the situation, and whenever we think we see the same situation again we invoke this pattern of behavior. We invest it with muscular tension, so that if we think we’re seeing the same picture that we saw many years ago, then the muscles tighten up. And an increase in muscular tension results in a decrease in awareness. They have an inverse proportionality.
And you gave the answer to that. You said, first of all, to name the feeling. Yes, because the mind actually doesn’t work by logic. It’s not utilized by digging. The mind works by association. And often the kinds of vasanas that we have are arranged under the heading of the feeling. So anger, fear, hatred, arrogance, whatever, all our vasanas will be arranged under those feelings.
And so once we connect with the feeling, once we name the feeling, then we’re in the ballpark. And then we simply have to ask the mind to throw up a picture or a phrase or something like that that identifies the vasana. The mind is obedient. It will throw up a picture right away. It works very quickly. We have to be able to catch the picture as it flies by us and grab it, and say, “Okay, well, I’m not going to question it. That’s the picture the mind threw up.”
The reason many people can’t complete their vasanas is the picture flies by and they don’t grab it, or they grab it and say, “Ah, it couldn’t be that!” and they let it go. They’ll find that when they see the picture, it’s not necessarily logical, it’s not necessarily reasonable.
But if it’s the right picture, up will come all the feelings associated with the vasana. And then what we need to do is we need to be with and observe those feelings until they naturally lift, as they will do. And if we work in that way, then we can complete or source the vasana.
Now, this is in contradistinction to feeling a feeling which has come from a vasana and assuming that the person standing in front of us is the cause of that feeling: “You made me feel angry, and now I’m angry and I’m going to shout at you.” So we project our feelings onto the person, or, as you said earlier, we stuff them. Neither of those will work. Both of those cause the persistence of the vasana.
The only thing that’s going to cause the lifting of the vasana is to be able to go through the experience of feeling exactly all the original emotions, letting them play upon our consciousness until they’re ready to lift, and then they lift. And that actually reduces the power of the vasana. It may not eliminate it the first time, but it reduces it. So, that’s what I recommend. If anybody all of a sudden feels explosive, or some issue comes up, an upset or an unwanted condition of any kind, look for the vasana and source the vasana.
GD: Can you help illustrate this by an example of what you’re talking about?
SB: Sure. I had an instance the other day where my perception — and I say my perception because it wasn’t the reality; it was just my perception, right? — my perception was that a person was appealing to my fear and wanting me not to do something because I needed to be cautious or afraid or whatever. And I had an explosive reaction, and I didn’t know why I had an explosive reaction. And if I’d gone into my mind and thought about it, then I would have said various things, but none of them were true.
It took quite a while for the vasana to come out because vasanas do take time to come out sometimes, and when it did what I saw was that my father used to control me, used to manipulate me or have me do what he wanted me to do on the basis of appealing to me on a basis that would have made me afraid.
So he’d cuff me across the back of the head, or he might kick me under the table, or something. And he didn’t need to do that a lot before I became conditioned. And after that it was enough just to glare at me, and that was enough to make me back down.
So this vasana was connected with my father and his use of fear to control me. It had gone off in this instance. It had nothing to do with the other person, and I wasn’t very logical or rational or balanced or anything of the sort. And I projected onto this other person. And really it wasn’t him at all that was at issue here; it was a way of child-rearing that my father had. And it took some time to see that. So that’s an illustration of a vasana going off.
GD: I think we can think of vasanas in terms of triggers. So, in the process that you speak of, that first feels hard, right? I mean, geez, this seems like a lot of work, but then it can become much quicker in terms of realizing, geez, okay, I’m feeling some feelings. This is connected to when I was a kid and I used to be bullied, or I didn’t feel like I had any power, or in my last relationship where I felt like my wife was really controlling and I didn’t have room to breathe. And so, perhaps it’s less about the person in the moment. It’s more about what we’re carrying into the present situation.
SB: Very much so. And by the way, it’s not a common occurrence that we can just say, oh, this has to do with X or Y. Usually the incident that it relates to is not necessarily easy to access. We need to use the mind in the way in which it was intended to be used: as a secretary who knows where the file is and will obediently bring it to you right away, if you ask it. That’s why it’s so handy. Because I’ve found that trying to reason these things through doesn’t work.
The original incident of a vasana usually turns out to be like the present situation, but not necessarily in ways that are obvious. Werner Erhard used to say, “A horse is a horse is a horse, but not always.” In other words, the horse that bit you may have had a red stick, a broom, a little ornament above his right ear, and you just suddenly walked into the presence of a horse who had a little red ornament above his right ear. And so you’re triggered. But you’ve seen all kinds of other horses who didn’t have a red broom above its right ear and you’ve never been triggered by them. So the vasana may be that specific. And it’s often not easy to get at.
GD: It’s kind of a Pavlovian moment, isn’t it?
SB: Definitely. It’s very, very much like a Pavlovian moment.
GD: Wes, let’s come to you for a moment. Let’s say you experience an altercation, and maybe you can describe the process that it’s been for you as you’ve been more willing to access feelings and speak up about them. Earlier we were talking about responsibility; we were talking about being balanced, centered, mindful in our communication. How’s that been going for you? So, something could happen — it could be with a family member, it could be with a love partner, maybe a child — how’s that going, to stay in your center, to stay in your heart when there’s discordant energies or conflict?
WA: Well, I was actually going to say, with Steve talking about vasanas and triggers, that led me to remember my biggest vasana that’s been triggered the most is the tendency to go out of my way to confront someone who I would perceive is a bully or someone I perceive is oppressing me. I’m sure this is a key vasana for a lot of people.
But when I think back on my life, I notice that ever since childhood, the middle school days, I would get an image in my head of somebody who I would think was a bully or somebody who was keeping me down in whatever way, and I would go very far out of my way to confront them, not in a balanced way or in a way that even communicated the issue at hand or the deeper issue, the vasana that would cause it, but in a way that just was intended to rebel against them.
Plenty of times in childhood I’ve tried to confront bullies whom I’ve thought were keeping me down, and then even growing up and starting to do this work, I can remember posting on the website galactic messages, whenever I very, very first started channeling. I don’t know how many people have read some of my first channeled messages, but they’re not exactly — how can I say this without putting them down? — I guess it’s easy to tell that I was just starting out when I first started channeling. Some of the connections were mind-centered and there were a few people who let me know that, that they didn’t resonate with the material and that it sounded like I was channeling an aspect of my own mind and things like that.
So, back then–this was a couple of years ago–instead of accepting that and asking myself what I can do to hone the craft and make it better, I noticed that I went out of my way to express hurt feelings and to confront these people who were saying these things, because I felt as if they had hurt me or put me down in some way, and I felt some subconscious responsibility to respond in a defensive way. You know.
That’s my biggest tendency, and I even have that problem with my wife, you could say. Sometimes if we get into an argument or an altercation it’s very easy for me to present myself as the victim or as somebody who’s being oppressed and kept down, when in reality I just need to find my center and then really tackle not only the issue at hand but, again, the deeper issues that were causing me to feel oppressed.
GD: I really appreciate you speaking to that, Wes. And I’m wanting to go back to what Gandhi said that changing the world starts with us, right? And I’m really interested, and heavily invested, in doing all I can to bring about a world that works. And I know it’s available. I know we can do it. And it starts with us as individuals.
And so, that’s a big incentive for me to do all I can: if I want peace in the world, to be at peace; if I want love in the world, to be as loving as I can. And things come up, right? Charges come up; challenges come up; conflict comes up. And so let’s maybe talk a little bit about how to work with that. What does it mean to be an open-hearted, balanced male when we’re living in a paradigm where the old third is still available and there are challenges, there’s conflict. What do we do when that happens?
Because it’s particularly trying, especially for all of us–and I think I’m pretty accurate in saying this–we’ve all had upbringings where we’ve seen the stereotypical male, where you yell and you throw things around, you get really upset, bottle energy, you blow up . . . so it can be really, really difficult, especially in the moment when things are really, really charged. I mean, that really gets back to being super present and super diligent, and taking responsibility for one’s actions.
But maybe we can talk a little bit about, how do we work with those moments? How do we approach those moments that are just super difficult, and we’ve got our triggers coming up, and there’s the ego, and that wants to come up to protect us and to enforce our needs, and we’ve been so accustomed or so exposed to the old way of being male? “You’re gonna fight me? I’m gonna fight you right back.” Well, clearly that doesn’t work in terms of building a peaceful world, right? So, either one of you want to speak to any of that?
WA: Sure, no problem. We’ve talked so far about balance and vulnerability, and especially when it comes to issues arising that we have to deal with in a balanced way. I think that the enlightened or the balanced male would benefit a lot from learning peaceful assertion of themselves or maybe their perspective, not in a way that sees us funnel our negativity or our perspective to others in a negative way, but that just presents how we feel and doesn’t let us–how can I best say this?–presents how we feel and doesn’t let us buckle if somebody doesn’t feel the same way.
There are a few different ways we can handle a conflict. We can stamp our feet and act like children and say, “I’m right, you’re wrong.” We can go the complete opposite way and just say, “Okay. I’m wrong and you’re right, and I’ll do what you want to do. I won’t even assert myself or express my own opinion.”
Or we can take the middle route, which is expressing, “Okay, this is how I feel. This is my stance on this subject. Your stance is different from mine, but that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong–and it’s welcomed. And maybe together we can come to a healthy middle ground on this,” instead of fighting about it into oblivion, or, you know, cultivating some kind of grudge against each other. I think we need that healthy level of assertion and respect for the perspective and beliefs of another.
GD: Well said. Steve?
SB: It’s interesting. First of all, I agree with what Wes said. And it’s interesting that, for me, anyways, there was a watershed moment in my life when I realized that it was okay to acknowledge the truth of what another person was saying. So, for instance, say they were saying, “You’re so rash and impetuous; you go off half-cocked.” That’s something my dad used to say to me.
It was a watershed moment for me to realize I could say, “Yeah! I probably am! Yeah, that fits!” To actually learn the skill of trying something on that somebody was saying, testing it out, seeing if it fit, and if it did, acknowledging it. It was like a moment of revelation when I discovered that one could actually do that. And I discovered that during a three-month resident fellowship at an encounter center.
It was liberating. It set me free. And now somebody could say to me, “Well, that was a stupid thing to do!” And I could say, “Yeah, yeah, I agree.” And that takes a lot of the sting out of things, a lot of the aggressiveness out of things. And then further, it was another revelation when I saw that I could actually give in, that I could acknowledge, that I could thank, that I could invite. I didn’t need to raise my dukes every time. I didn’t need to be in denial. I didn’t need to be in that kind of manly self-sufficiency.
And so, in this three-month residential encounter group that I was in for three months in 1976-77, we could test these things out. And I made a lot of shifting there, a lot of shifting away from the traditional male. So, for me, the biggest moment is when one can hear somebody saying something to us that’s meant as a dart or a barb, or and we can actually acknowledge whether it’s truthful or not. I mean, that’s the biggest shift for me.
WA: I like what you’re saying there, Steve. That kind of takes me back to my example of whenever I was first posting my channeled messages, how I said people would tell me that it didn’t resonate with them and that it kind of sounded like I was channeling myself in a sense, I chose at the time to get really mad and to rebel, and it eventually turned into a whole big thing.
Since that’s happened, I’ve looked back at some of that material that they were talking about, and I actually understood what they were talking about. I said to myself, okay, there’s a little bit of reality or sensibility to what they’re saying. Yeah, there might have been some jabs in there, or maybe something that was intended to discourage or hurt my feelings or something like that, but that wasn’t the entire point of what the people were saying. In a certain sense, it was like they were giving me a tip. And I didn’t even realize it because of my own character armor.
My own armor wasn’t letting me see that. And now that I’ve grown to a place where I can see that, whether it’s with my channeling, my writings, my music or anything else, I strive to be on a better level, and I strive to be able to take advice. For example, Steve, I believe when I first started posting to the Golden Age of Gaia you gave me a few recommendations about grammar and things like that that would make the material a little more readable.
I could have easily retreated into hurt feelings or anything like that, but I heard out what you were saying, and I at least made an attempt to orient my material toward a more understandable, readable way for the people who are going to be reading it. So I think it’s very important that we move beyond our initial vasana-caused reactions to criticism or jabs or things that could even be intended only to hurt our feelings so we can recognize the catalyst there that’s intended to help us move up to the next level.
GD: What you guys are speaking to is one of the take-aways I’m gathering from this is this idea of staying in an observer role, right? Staying in equanimity. So, being able to get to a place of just stepping back, taking a breath and just kind of looking at the situation, observing it, and as opposed to an immediate reaction to that. And Steve, you touched upon something earlier, and I want to talk about empathy and compassion and the importance of that and human connection. And I also want to get into putting up healthy boundaries around people.
So you were talking about when someone would say something, and you being in a place where you could receive them, and actually, instead of getting defensive and putting your dukes up, you could actually really think through, or give their comment some consideration, to be able to say, “Geez, you know, you’re right! Boy, I hadn’t really considered that, and I really get what you’re saying.”
And I want to incorporate this important piece of empathy in here, especially when talking about open-hearted living, communication being–boy, that’s key, isn’t it? So we can say to someone — and this incorporates reflective listening, too, right? — “Boy, I really get what you’re saying here, and I can understand how, after you shared with me what you just did, like I can really get how you’re feeling, I can really understand that.” Boy, does that bring the temperature down, or what?
And then we’ll get into some listening. We’ll talk about listening here in a moment, but really, to hear somebody and to really tune into the situation, again, it’s about connections, being open-hearted, to be able to receive someone and be present in a situation, and say, “geez, I really, I really understand what you’re saying.” Let’s get into listening for a minute and the importance of listening, and then we can talk about healthy boundaries with others.
Boy, listening is such an important part of communication, and part of relationship, isn’t it? And most of us probably don’t know how to do it really well. How oftentimes we’re trying to establish and assert our own needs and wants and desires, and the ego is definitely invested in that, and driving that.
Let’s talk about listening. And, Steve, you’ve done a lot of writing and exploration around listening. And I know you’re really passionate about the importance of listening. What’s rising up for you?
SB: I am passionate, not only about the importance of listening, but the rewards of listening. By the way, Graham, I don’t think I’ve seen a better listener than you.
GD: Oh!
SB: I have to acknowledge that on the air. Or more empathic.
GD: Thanks, Steve.
SB: Yeah. People want to be gotten. They want to be heard. They want to be understood. Being understood, or understanding, is hugely important to us. If somebody dies, or if somebody is killed, the first thing — and probably the only thing — we ask is why. Why? Why did this happen? People, for some reason, if they understand, or if they are understood, the temperature goes down and it’s like turning the page in the book.
I was the youngest in the family, and I was not listened to. So this is an example a vasana for me and part of my constructed self, my mask. But it has a flip side, and that’s that out of it all I learned how to listen. And I just found that to be such a rewarding exercise. I also studied to be a group leader as a sociologist, and part of that was studying to be a counselor. And I would do volunteer counseling as part of my what you might think of as a practicum. And I would listen to people, and I would try to sell them solutions, problem-solving therapy. And they weren’t buying! You know, they would just toss the solution aside and they’d go on with their story.
And I’d say, oh, my God, it took me so long to come up with that solution! Now, I have to find another! Finally, I got that they weren’t interested in my solutions; they just wanted to be heard. And if I listened long enough, the puzzle they were confronting became a picture.
And they would say, “Oh, God! I got it! I see it! I know now why I’m doing this thing!” And as soon as they saw this picture, they just wanted to stop the session, run out the door and go report it to their spouse or partner. So I wouldn’t even keep them long. I’d say, “Okay! Goodbye!” and off they’d go.
GD: Yeah.
SB: It was just very clear to me that listening was the answer when people are in upset, or dealing with unwanted conditions. If you listen to anybody long enough, they’ll get what they need to get without you having to do anything. It was an easy way of counseling. So yeah, I’m passionate about listening. Wes may also have experiences.
WA: Yeah, I think listening is the greatest way to be of service to somebody. I’ve received very long, flowing emails from people before who’ve had certain problems or issues. And I noticed that, over the solution that I would offer what really meant the most to them was just the fact that they were able to talk to somebody about it. Sometimes what people really want is a direct level of communication so they can work out for themselves I guess in a way that they can really listen to themselves as they say the things they’re saying.
They want to be able to solve their problems for themselves, but they want to be able to have a bit of a support structure there in the form of somebody else who can listen to them. That other person, as you said, Steve, could work very hard to devise a solution to the problem, but in the end it’s just that people want their voices and issues and maybe problems to be heard.
Something I really appreciate about writing is if I ever have a problem I can sit down and write about it and sometimes I find that I’ve either found the solution or I’ve at least come closer. Just by writing, the situation has been able to come full circle or at least half circle just because I got that expression out there.
But everybody isn’t able to just write down their problems and their feelings. Other people want contact with somebody who can hear them out and who can say, okay, I’m not just listening but I’m hearing what you’re saying. I’m here to offer a solution, but for the most part I’m just a pair of ears for you to pour your problems or your issues into.
And I think that’s what most people who do have problems or issues really desire, just to be able to communicate and get it out. Because otherwise it stays trapped in, and then, like you said, Graham, it turns into something that is either a ridiculous emotional outrage or it could even turn and devastate their physical health or cancer or some other type of disease or ailment.
There’s absolutely no benefit from keeping your problems locked up inside. All it really does is . . . if I can quote Ziggy Marley here, he says, if you don’t deal with it, it keeps killing you, little by little. And for some people just being able to communicate is what helps them really deal with it, you know?
GD: There’s an exercise that a friend shared with me once that I’ve done that I really, really like. And this fully connects to this concept of listening. And you can do this with a friend, co-worker, spouse, a child–anyone, really–and again it gets us back to that connection, that human connection. To just sit down and commit to five minutes where the other person just speaks and just shares what’s on their mind, and to not even respond right away, and maybe not even respond until the next day.
[Steve: This is the basic exercise of an Enlightenment Intensive.]
So that person has the stage, has the floor, and they know that they’re being heard. And of course you being the listener, you’re attentive, you’re engaged, but you’re not trying to defend. You’re not trying to interject. You’re really giving that person the floor. Boy, what a gift!
And what a gift that helps people soften or can, right? I mean, it depends on the issue and how extensive it is, but it can be a way to really help people open their hearts and really bring about a stronger connection.
This is all back to what you were saying, Steve: why are we here? And we want to be in joy. We want to live happy, peaceful lives. And we’re discussing today that being open-hearted, being vulnerable, living in a balanced way is a key component to that. And we can do that, right? We can live open-heartedly, we can be vulnerable, we can be balanced, present, mindful, all of that, and situations are still going to come up.
And so I want to get into, what do you do when you’re around really challenging people that might be really invested in drama, in conflict, for whatever reason? And I want to talk about putting up healthy boundaries. And I’ll just share a little bit about this from my perspective, just to get this kind of started. I realized that, a number of years ago, that I didn’t have to be hanging around people that choose to embody a charged way of life, and chose to have charged communication, that live in drama, that live in fear, that seem to want to pick a fight.
And I realized, I started looking at all walks, all areas of my life, all relationships, including family members. And this is particularly hard, to say, geez, you know, I’m not going to do this anymore. I love you, I accept you just as you are. And I’m not invested in changing you. I also need to take care of myself here, and I’m realizing that this relationship, how we’re expressing this relationship isn’t working for me.
And so I’ve really stepped back, and I’ve put up some healthy boundaries with immediate family, and I’ve stepped away from relationships that don’t work. I mean, that’s not to say that I haven’t tried to work through them. I mean, there’s a real argument or case for not just giving up on people, right? But for me it was just getting to a point of realizing, boy, I’ve really tried, really tried to work this relationship, really tried to get to a place of peace with this, and it’s really causing a lot of strife and a lot of challenge in my life.
And so I’ve stepped away from certain relationships. And I feel a heck of a lot more peaceful as a result from that. Do either of you have any experiences like that? Do you want to speak to that?
WA: Oh, sure. I was actually going to say, this is sort of in line with what Graham is saying. What you said, Graham, brought a few of these memories up for me. For my own reasons, I wasn’t always the happiest teenager. I’m sure a lot of teenagers really aren’t. But I can remember there were plenty of times whenever I would come to my father, come to my dad with a problem or something that was really frustrating me.
And I noticed that I was very angry. I was very upset. And it’s almost as if I wanted him to see the situation was making me upset. But instead of going out of his way to identify and appease that, my dad sort of, in a very balanced, level-headed, centered way, helped me deal with the problems, helped me deal with the issue that was arising.
And I really appreciate that, because that reminds me of what you’re saying, Graham, about not letting the negative perspective, the negativity of others take you out of your centered place, not let others’ negativity stop you from being able to help them. There are definitely going to be people who we just have to walk away from for a while, even if only temporarily. But there will also be times when maybe those very same people will have an issue that’s not necessarily related to us, but we wouldn’t know it, because maybe they’re angry at us over this issue.
And then from a balanced and centered place we can do what my father did for me, and continues to do sometimes. If I ever call him up with a problem or something that’s stressing me out, and deal with the problem, you know, in a balanced, level-headed way, a way that doesn’t give in to the negativity, or even acknowledge the negativity. Which is probably the worst thing for an ego, to not have its negativity acknowledged and appeased, you know? So I think that’s a good way to go with that in terms of our relationships with others, just to be able to hear them out in a balanced way.
GD: Well, and it underscores something that’s really important here, Wes, and that’s that huge shifts can occur in relationship, right? I mean, huge transformations. And a lot of what we discussed, I feel, set the stage for that to occur. And what I was speaking to earlier was you could apply all of that, you could experience all of that, work it, and over time perhaps get to a point of realizing that this isn’t serving me anymore. I’ve done what I can here. And to be okay with stepping back and taking care of yourself. And recognize that, boy, this kind of relationship isn’t working.
But first and foremost, really try to adopt practices and approaches to work the relationship to get to a better place. And, yeah, I really appreciate what you’re saying.
WA: Yeah. We don’t do ourselves or the other person involved any type of justice if we try to stick around a relationship that clearly just isn’t working, and that’s with romantic, family, or anything. I’ve read a lot of channeled messages before that said, yeah, some of you might find yourselves drifting away from a few of your family members or a few of your friends, but that’s only if the relationship no longer serves you or impedes you.
And I’ve also read that eventually, after you’ve had your time to grow and develop and they’ve had their time to grow and develop, your relationship might actually come back but in a much different way, in a much more detached way on your part and maybe even on their part. I guess it can be equated to trying to write. Sometimes if I try to write and I find that the flow just isn’t there, I’ll tell myself, okay, I’ve done everything I can do. I’ll go ahead and step back from this for now.
And it’s kind of the same thing with a relationship. When you know that you’ve done your best and you know that you’re at a point where it’s okay just to step back and do your own thing and mature in your own way, and let them mature in their own way, then maybe, eventually, down the line you might even return to a balanced relationship with that person that’s much different from how the relationship was before, but that enables you to–the two of you, whoever it might be–to come together again, and maybe eventually even grow stronger than ever. But I agree that you just have to be willing to let go if it’s clearly not working out.
GD: And forgiveness is a key part of that, right? Forgiveness of the self and forgiveness of others. I’ve found in my life that just letting things go and really honoring the other person, not to try to change them, but embrace them for who they are and where they are, and recognize that we’re all from the same Source. And I don’t always know what they’ve been exposed to, what they’re working with, what their history’s been, what their challenges have been.
And to be able to just say, I honor you. It’s that namaste, right? It’s honoring the divinity within you and being able to come to a place of connecting on a soul-to-soul level. I honor you for who you are, I see your light and your divinity. And it could be stepping back, it could be stepping back for a time, it could be stepping back altogether, but getting to a place of joy, and getting to a place of peace, and being open-hearted with others.
Forgiveness, I mean, we really can’t talk about any of this if we haven’t satisfied the discussion fully if we don’t talk about forgiveness. Steve, anything you want to say around that?
SB: Well, I like to take all three of the divine qualities together at one time: Forgiveness handles the past for me. It handles things that have happened in the past. Love handles things that are happening in the present. And trust handles things that are happening in the future. Again, divine qualities. If I may, Graham, just refer back to something you said earlier: we talked about observing; we talked about empathy; we talked about understanding. Observing and empathy are divine qualities, right?
We keep finding, we keep stumbling upon discovering, time after time, that the divine qualities satisfy. They fulfill our deepest longings. They reward us. Understanding is not so much a divine quality as it is part of our purpose in being alive. Our purpose in being alive is to know ourselves. And so you could call that discrimination or discernment, or you could call it understanding.
And so all of these things are so important to us, because they’re either divine qualities, which, in other words, are qualities of God, and God is love, through and through, so they either bring us closer to God, closer to being God, closer to knowing God, however you want to talk about it. And that’s their importance.
In regards to people that I’m having difficulty with, I used to think that it was necessary to take some action, you know, like I’m going to leave this person, or I’m going to say something to this person. And it took me quite some time to get the richness of inaction. Never mind action, never mind leaving the person or telling them something, but standing back and observing. It’s a passive stance. You just watch the events go by you. They don’t create a needle scratch on the mind, which is the real meaning of a vasana — a vasana is a needle scratch on the mind. They don’t create a vasana. You just see. You just watch. And the whole thing goes by and leaves no residue.
GD: How freeing.
SB: Yes! How freeing, how empowering, and how residue-less this is. No residue from that. So, that’s my personal favorite of the moment in reacting with people who are objectionable. Just stand back and observe. And don’t make any decisions on the basis of it. Remember the story of the Buddha always giving back a present that somebody gave him that he didn’t want, like anger. He would say, “Thank you for that present, but I give it back to you. It doesn’t belong to me.”
And by standing back and observing, we’re giving back to the person their outburst or what have you. It works for me. Forgiveness wipes the slate clean. All of these divine qualities — forgiveness, love, observing, compassion–all of them are God-like and ennobling, and uplifting, inspiring, empowering. So, I think that’s the reason for taking them up. Life works when we manifest the divine qualities in ourselves. And nowhere does that show up more than in dealing with an objectionable person.
GD: I am thinking about our process. Each of the steps that we’ve taken in our lives, because I’ve gotten to know both of you over time, and I think it’s really important, you know, we’re on an intentional path, right? I mean, we have a desire, a genuine desire to step in to the grandness of the brilliance of who we are. And self-mastery, I like that term. You’ve used that before, Steve.
And it’s the pursuit of that that we’re on. We might not be fully embodying that, but we’re on the journey. And I think it’s really important to be really gentle with ourselves, and to extend forgiveness to ourselves for not always getting it right, for making mistakes, the hiccups. And that’s everyone, to just remember that we’re learning, we’re growing. And particularly these days the growth is, [laughs] feels exponential! [laughs]
SB: Indeed.
GD: What does it mean to be balanced in terms of our masculinity and femininity? Oftentimes we see in Hollywood, in literature, we’ve been spoon-fed this idea of another completing someone else. So this idea of “you complete me,” or “I need you” to feel whole and complete. And so, in relationship, in love relationship, partnership, it doesn’t matter if it’s heterosexual, same-sex, I mean, it doesn’t matter. . . . I’m resonating more with this idea. . . . Well, let me back up.
I feel like there needs to be polarity, right? So you have the masculine and the feminine. And I feel that really needs to be balanced. The question is, in a relationship, there’s been this theory and notion that, okay, you have one person that embodies more the masculine. You have another person that embodies more the feminine. And that’s where you find balance.
I’m resonating with this idea that, as we step into the fullness of our beings, our true divinity, our God-selves, that that balance is contained within. So, within each of us as individuals we are balanced. So, within me the idea is that I’m balanced in my masculine side, I’m balanced in my feminine side; my partner is as well. It’s different from a lot of the paradigm, or a lot of what we’ve been taught growing up: I need you. I . . . you complete me. I’m thinking of the Jerry Maguire movie, where this famous line by a female actress who says, “You complete me.” And oh, no! It was … what’s his name in that movie?
SB: Tom Cruise.
GD: Tom Cruise was saying “You complete me.” And I feel that, as we have been exploring and stepping into our evolution that that doesn’t work anymore. Thoughts? Wes?
WA: I like what you said a lot about that, Graham. I actually have the Golden Gaia database pulled up here, and I wanted to read a quote I found that I feel like kind of relates to what you’re saying here. It’s a quote from Archangel Michael channeled through Rona Herman about this subject. It’s a little long, you might have to bear with me, but I wanted to read this real quick.
“Dear hearts, you are a composite of all of your past experiences and memories. You’ve had many lifetimes as a female where you were abused or mistreated by men and many lifetimes in the male body where you suffered the loss of your beloved mate, were betrayed, or did not measure up in some way. All of those conflicting energies within your cells, auric fields and brain structures will color your outlook on the opposite sex until you resolve and transmute them.
“At the core of your being what you are really seeking is the reunification with the other half of your godly self, that perfect, divine ray of creation that was sent forth in its totality. You then separated into two sub-rays, one representing the Father-creator and the other a representative of the Mother-creator. You have divided and separated into many facets or fragments of consciousness since, but have forever yearned and sought your return into wholeness and unity consciousness.
“How can you accomplish the healing and reunification of these two primary facets of yourself? First, by developing a sense of self, self worth and self love. You will begin to radiate this higher vibratory energy out from your auric force-field and others will respond in kind. Learn to trust yourself and your intuition so that you may trust others.
“You will never feel alone when you learn that you have a mighty force of angels ever near you ready to protect, encourage, love and support you every moment of the day or night. Release the pain of the past by forgiving yourself and all others.”
I thought that was very relevant to what you were saying about how we seek completion in another, and really what we’re seeking is completion with the Source, with the Divine Mother and the Divine Father who’ve been separated from the Source to create this crazy lower-dimensional existence we’re living.
GD: That was perfect, Wes, really, really quite timely and relevant. Thanks for sharing that. Steve, I bet you have some comments coming up about that.
SB: You know I’m champing at the bit! [laughs] What Wes just read was perfect background to what I’m about to say as well, and that is, first of all, if we really think about it for a second, we need to get back to basics here. If we really think about it for a sec, the soul — and we’re all a soul; each of us is a soul — the soul has no gender. There is no gender in the soul.
As Wes read from Archangel Michael, gender developed in response to this creation of twin flames. You can talk about the divine male, divine female, but you’re not talking about the same distinction that was made between Father God and Mother God. What makes Mother God different from Father God is that Mother God is in motion and Father God is still.
Now, Mother God has all the qualities of Father God; they’re no different in that respect, but Mother God moves. How was it said? In Proverbs Mother God says that “I moved upon the waters and created. . . .” The Mother moves and imbues the basic elements with movement — in atoms, the electrons spin around the neutrons. And that creates matter, mater, Mother.
So, that’s a distinction between Mother God and Father God. But when we get down to the psychological level, we tend to think of women as embodying love and men as embodying energy and forcefulness and penetration. That’s an inversion of the divine distinctions. Gender is transient; gender is temporary. We are healing the mental divisions within ourselves that result in thoughts about gender.
We’re coming back to the soul’s genderless, androgynous condition, and that’s the same whether you’re manifesting right now as a female, in a female body, or in a male body. But the whole distinction, the whole division into men and women, male/female, whatever you want to call it, is temporary. It’s transitional. This is another circumstance in which we’re trying to get back to the Source, to the original, to the origin. And when we get back to the origin, there’s no such thing as gender anymore.
We’ve reunited the two aspects of our being. So, having these aspects of our being, having gender is just another aspect of the puzzle, the original puzzle, the original division, the original creation of a game, of a lila, a divine play in which we embed ourselves in illusion and dreaming and what have you and then try to waken from that. When we awaken from that, we come back to the undivided, original Source that we are.
So, if I can just summarize what I just said, the existence of gender is just another aspect of the puzzle which we need to solve, which we need to get back prior to, so to speak, and it’s just another aspect of the dream, of the illusion. And when we wake up from it completely, not just wake up from it in the ways we talk about right now, but when we wake up from it completely, we wake up and find that we are androgynous, that we are genderless.
And of course you know that the higher beings that we see look androgynous, and we also know that beings like archangels can manifest as feminine or masculine, switch back and forth as they like. They really don’t have gender. So, that’s what I wanted to say, because, as you know Graham, the subject is dear to my heart.
GD: And as we transition to that, and if we are in male form, those traditional, masculine qualities, the strength, the forward movement, the action, the protection in balance with the feminine qualities — the nurturing, the caring, the intuition, for example. What we seek and what we strive for is wholeness within.
I mentioned intuition, and that seems like something that’s pretty important to speak to — again, not a common, stereotypical masculine trait — but as we step into being open-hearted and balanced, I find that that’s really a key piece to all of this. I know for me, my intuition is something that I’ve worked on for years, that’s grown and grown and expanded over time, and it serves me tremendously in terms of how I walk in the world and how I am with others and the actions that I take.
What kinds of things, Wes, do you do to stay connected to your intuition? And recognizing that we stay connected to our intuition. When we connect to our intuition we connect to our hearts; that connects us to the soul, the higher self, right? So what do you do to keep that channel open?
WA: Some of the biggest things I strive to do–I should say one of the biggest things I strive to do–is not to let the mind go on auto-pilot. And this is something I’ve been meaning to bring up throughout the whole show, because it keeps being relevant to a lot of the things we’re talking about.
Letting your mind work on auto-pilot with anything, with the work that you do, with your relationships with others, how you interact with another, that makes it very easy for the vasanas and the unresolved issues and the negativity, that makes it very easy for all of that to come up and that also makes it very easy for us to be cut off from our intuition or our greater sense of how we’re supposed to be dealing with the situation, with our relationship or anything like that.
I think that’s about all I have to say on that, is that as long as we can move beyond our basic reactions to things, or our basic — how should I say this? — the mechanical, mental ways in which we’ve lived our lives, as long as we can move beyond that and step more fully into the heart space, I think we’ll have an uninhibited intuitional flow that speaking from experience just goes wonderfully. So, that’s my recommendation there, is to just let the auto-pilot go and let yourself exist in the fullness of your own presence.
GD: Terrific. Thanks. Steve? Intuition?
SB: Well, I think of intuition as genderless, too. Intuition is a soul quality. And remember how we used to think of having two Campbell’s soup tins and a string in between and we would talk with another person this way?
GD: Yeah.
SB: Well, for me intuition is the soul speaking for me. It’s the inner voice, voice in the silence, Big Steve. It’s guidance, it’s opening up to that guidance. And I’ve always functioned by intuition. You could also say that I’m being guided, you could say that I’m being spoken to from the other side, but intuition is the way I write.
I don’t see pictures. I have friends who actually see their guides. I have friends who hear their guides. I don’t have that. But the words arise in me by intuition. So, I’ve never thought of it as being, say, an element of the Divine Feminine but not of the Divine Masculine. I’ve always thought of it as being an element of both. And it’s very important for me. In fact, I don’t think I could over-stress the importance.
I was watching the other day how I write, Graham. And what I noticed was that I’m sitting there at the typewriter, and I may ask myself a question, whatever, but the ideas come one at a time. And I’m no sooner finished writing one idea than the next idea is right there, crowding itself in on my mind and wanting to be expressed. And I just kind of watched this after a while, and it’s like the answers come!
One after another, as soon as I had the first one down, the next one was pressing itself on my mind to be written down. Now, whether you want to call that intuition, or how you want to characterize that process I don’t know. But I’ve seen it happen. You know, the words just come into my mind, one after another, and demand to be written on the paper. It’s startling. It’s a startling process.
WA: It very much is. That’s what I like to call “the flow” whenever you’re writing. Dr. Eben Alexander, in his book Proof of Heaven, takes kind of a journey into the Source. It’s a very interesting book and I recommend it to anybody who’s interested in life after death. In that book he talks about how communication in the higher realms, that he was able to be given a glimpse of, communication takes place in the form of — how can I best say this? — paragraphs of information, seas of information just being poured into somebody’s mind, and because of the fact that they’re not in a limited human body, they’re in an expanded, etheric body, they’re able to just perceive and understand all of it instantly. It doesn’t matter, you could communicate a book to somebody and they would get it just as well as if you’d said a small phrase to them.
So I think that’s what we’re learning to cultivate, that greater intuitional flow, that greater ability to be able to pick up on the energy we’re being given from the higher dimensions and translate it into words, feelings, impressions. And I think that that flow is very, very helpful.
GD: Well, intuition is such a key part of all of this. And people can connect to intuition in different ways. Writing–you both resonate and connect with that. Also talking about intuition generally, too. So, that sense, that can’t be logically or rationally explained, that inner nudge, that inner knowing that speaks to us, I mean, that’s Source, that’s soul, that’s higher self, whatever you want to call it.
And the importance of taking time to connect to that intuition, whatever it may be, by adding spaciousness into your day — meditation, yoga, being in nature. Some people knit, some people do a puzzle, some people dance. So, I don’t think we can talk about being balanced, I don’t think we can talk about being open-hearted–because it’s about living from the heart, right?–we can’t talk about that, if we don’t talk about intuition. It’s such a key piece to all this.
We’ve scratched the surface on so much today, here. And I really appreciate everything you’ve shared and everything you’ve contributed, and every aspect or piece that we’ve touched upon. We could do a whole show and still not cover it. And so today was just about doing just that. It’s really scratching the surface, discussing this, opening the door to greater conversation, which I am looking forward to doing next week at this time. Suzanne Maresca and Christina Mahler will be joining me, and we’ll be talking about the open-hearted, balanced female. So, I certainly encourage you to join us at that time.
Wes, Steve, anything else that you feel like we’re missing in this conversation, or you’re chomping at the bit to speak to before we wrap it up?
SB: Yes, I’m chomping at the bit to speak about one thing. And that’s not to leave out of the discussion of intuition the necessity for humility. It’s so important, if you want to facilitate the creative flow, the intuitive flow, to get oneself out of the way, to stand aside, to not try to impose one’s own ideas on the flow. And that is a very humble process. That’s an exercise in humility, to stop trying to add to the flow, to allow the flow unimpeded access to your mind.
So, that’s the one thing I wanted to add, Graham. I very much enjoyed the discussion.
GD: Well, very well said, Steve. I appreciate you speaking to that. Wes, any final comments?
WA: [laughs] Well, I didn’t have anything until Steve said that just now. What he said, has just helped me along in my own process, and goes along with the advice I’ve been given from a lot of readers who’ve commented on my recent article “The Catalyst of Creative Inhibition,” which I wrote precisely because of what Steve was talking about. I wasn’t feeling that flow. But in not feeling it, I recognized that I was actually getting in my own way. I was trying to have my mind work on auto-pilot, and artificially produce or add to this flow, which just ends up producing airy, vanilla-coated words that don’t really mean a whole lot.
So, I guess my last thing to say is that I really appreciate what Steve said about that. And I couldn’t agree with it more. That is the absolute best thing we can do for any creative flow, and really anything else in life, is just to get out of our own way. It’s such a simple solution, but it’s so difficult for some people at the same time. I know I’ve certainly experienced my share of difficulty in getting out of my own way and letting the heart work through me, but I really appreciate that, that he said that.
GD: Well, it’s akin to just getting out of the mind, getting out of the ego, and getting into the heart. And that’s what we’re all about today. Gentlemen, this has been delightful. I’m reflecting again on this unique opportunity where we have represented in this discussion three different generations that we’re on the same page in really key areas that we’ve discussed here today, and I find that remarkable.
I think it speaks to how far we’ve come to be able to get to a place where we can have this kind of discussion and have more and more people, especially men, be open to this notion of open-heartedness in how we approach life. So thank you very much. It’s been such a rich discussion, and I’m grateful for you being here today.
SB: Thank you, Graham.
WA: Thank you very much, Graham. Was very happy to be a part of this. Thank you.
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